All posts tagged: Coloring books for adults

Some days I can’t make my pen go the way I want it to. I can draw the same line over and over again, and it’ll keep veering off course. It takes gnashing of teeth and crossing of eyes to make it work. Other days, no problem. Today was the former, unfortunately, but I did finish the coloring book page with the aerial view of the Boston Medical Center area. I actually prefer a slightly sketchy look. To my eye, it gives character. I don’t think the lines need to be perfectly straight. I started coloring it in because it helps me see the overall drawing better. You might remember the little section of this that I was working on a day or two ago: I had to make a few changes to the Medical Center building, and I added in a lot of other details. Such as more trees, and windows, windows, and more windows. I draw pretty goofy looking cars, I have to admit, but I’m okay with that, too. My South End …

When I first wrote about my South End Boston adult coloring book project, there were not yet adult coloring books cramming book store and art supply store shelves everywhere. Now, quite often there are. It’s been fascinating to watch the craze take hold in the process of making this book.

Here’s another free coloring page from my upcoming coloring book of Boston’s South End neighborhood. This scene shows diners waiting outside to get into Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe, a place that served breakfast and lunch in Boston’s South End for 87 years.

For those of you who like to color, here’s a free page from my upcoming coloring book of Boston’s South End neighborhood. This scene shows locals who come out on Monday nights in the summer for salsa dancing in the park.

As I wrote yesterday, I’ve begun a new adult coloring book project. I’m getting more excited about this each day as I think about shaping the direction and content. The image above is a new coloring page in progress. The scene is a low rise South End Boston stoop, on a street near to the Back Bay border. It’s a little funny feeling to be working just in black & white. If you’ve seen my art, you’ll understand why! Have a good evening, friends.

What comes to mind when you think of Boston? Walking the Freedom Trail? Eating cod with baked beans? As far as I can tell, these are things that Bostonians rarely (if ever) think about doing, unless they have tourists coming to visit. I could be wrong. This isn’t to say that there aren’t worthy tourist attractions in Boston. There are. But having lived here 22 years, I see much more interesting threads in the fabric of my adopted town. In my South End neighborhood alone: the local grocery store, the community garden, the artist studio buildings, the Spanish tapas bar, the post office, the sandwich shops, the homeless shelter, the hardware store, the dog park, the vintage cookbook store, the super-modern new house in the midst of a block of 18th century brownstones, the fire station, the bilingual pre-school, the doggie bakery, the bus stops. The fountains in the park, the park bench sleepers, the belligerent dog walker with her massive herd of canines. The red brick sidewalks, the parking spaces, the cherry blossom trees, the seagulls. The old man in the red, white and blue jacket who rides around …